


Rotary Cutter

by bomberqueen17



Series: Two-Body Problem [10]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Beer, Buddies, Gen, M/M, No Smut, Quilting, Sewing, is part of a slash series but no active slash in this bit, manly crafting, rodney is a mother hen, rotary cutter, very mild shep whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 07:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1378585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written almost solely because popkin16 made a McShep AO3 Filter Tumblr and nothing was in it yet.<br/>http://ao3feed-mcshep.tumblr.com/</p><p>Also, because this just happened to me. Literally, I just typed this story with nine fingers-- well, eight, I never use my left thumb for typing either-- because I just cut the heck out of my left index finger with a rotary cutter when I got distracted whilst trying to make, yes, superhero capes for my niece and nephews. (I self-insert my life shamelessly in this stuff, I'm not even sorry. I may have had a beer or two, too...)</p><p>I didn't need stitches, though. </p><p> </p><p>This is part of a slash series but this bit could be read as gen-- if you're inclined that way, they could just be really super good friends. There's no makeouts. Alas. (If I had all ten fingers, maybe I'd get that ambitious.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [popkin16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/popkin16/gifts).



 

Rodney tracked Sheppard down to the 17th-floor lounge. He was in there by himself, doing something elaborate on the big coffee table. Something with fabric, probably to do with the stupid goddamn teddy bear project or whatever they were calling it. Rodney set the six-pack he’d brought John back from Earth down on one of the end tables, and went in and flopped down dramatically on the couch with a gusty sigh. 

Sheppard startled, dropped something, whipped around to look at him, and started cursing. “Nice to see you too,” Rodney said. 

“Rodney,” Sheppard said, pained, and then Rodney noticed the blood. 

“Oh sweet Jesus,” he said, scrambling to sit up. Sheppard’s left index finger was bleeding profusely. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t sneak up on a guy using a goddamn fucking razor,” Sheppard said, shoving his finger in his germy mouth like that was going to help in some fashion. Big fat bright red drops had already fallen onto the table, his other hand, and the front of his gray shirt. 

“What the fuck were you doing with a razor?” Rodney yelped, hovering nervously. 

Sheppard glared at him. The table had fabric laid out on it, and a bright yellow-handled thing with a circular metal blade. “It’s a rotary cutter,” he said, voice a little muffled by his bleeding finger stuck in his mouth. “You use it to cut fabric.”

“Or cut off fingers, apparently,” Rodney said crossly. “Let me see that.”

“It’s fine,” Sheppard said, tremendously annoyed, and pulled it out of his mouth and wrapped it in a scrap of fabric. “Christ.”

The fabric was soaked nearly instantly in blood. “You need to go get stitches in that,” Rodney fussed, trying to get a look at it. 

“I do not,” Sheppard said. “Jesus.” He picked up the yellow-handled thing and went back to work, cutting a smooth curve through several layers of fabric.

“More teddy bears?” Rodney asked. 

“No,” Sheppard said, prickly. He had caught on pretty quickly that Rodney wasn’t into the sewing lark and was only really interested in making fun of it, but he’d proven to be remarkably delicate on the subject, no fun at all to needle. And Ronon came from a culture where there was nothing funny about gender roles, and so being called girly had absolutely no effect on him but tended to annoy Teyla. And annoying Teyla was really an all-around terrible idea. 

“Then what is it?” Rodney asked, giving up on Sheppard’s finger and looking at the fabric instead. It was finely woven stuff; despite himself Rodney had learned a fair bit about fabric in his stints as a trader, and this looked to be a midweight twill fabric of a type sort of similar to Earth silk— drapey, with a slight sheen, protein-based, very sturdy, good insulator. Its only weakness was that machine washing tended to beat the soft hand out of it and strip out the luster, though the mid to heavyweight stuff held up well enough for use in garments and blankets. The lightweight stuff was best as scarves and curtains and the like. Sometimes it was woven shot with fine wire for a beautiful glittery effect. 

This stuff was richly dyed, in the gradients Sheppard seemed fond of. He was cutting it into long curving shapes, and had a pile of them already cut. It was mostly in shades of blue, but there were a few orange/red strips. Rodney picked one up. 

“Hey,” Sheppard said, “don’t get those out of order.”

“What are they for?” Rodney asked. 

“You wouldn’t be interested,” Sheppard said. “Damn it!” 

He’d bled through his impromptu bandage, and there were more blood splats on the pale blue part of the fabric he was cutting now. “Sheppard,” Rodney said, alarmed again. He grabbed Sheppard’s bleeding hand and looked at it. It was a bad cut, several inches long down the side of his forefinger. “Jesus, you really got yourself.” 

“Ow,” Sheppard groused, “lemme go.” 

Rodney tucked Sheppard’s arm under his armpit to look closer at his hand. “Ow!” Sheppard yelled as Rodney gently squeezed at the finger’s middle joint. The skin parted, as he’d feared, and showed how deep the wound was. 

“Oh my God,” Rodney said, “that’s it, we’re going to the infirmary.” 

“It’s fine,” Sheppard whined, snatching his hand back and splattering blood in the process. 

“That’s disgusting,” Rodney said, and browbeat Sheppard to his feet. He stashed the beer safely under the end table with a length of fabric over it (it was pretty safe already, he’d written “SHEPPARD” on it and there wasn’t a soul on Atlantis who’d deny Sheppard anything), and wrapped another fabric scrap around Sheppard’s hand, then chivvied him down the hall and into the transporter. 

“If you hadn’t snuck up on me this never would’ve happened,” Sheppard said, grumpy. 

“If you weren’t crafting with a _death machine_ this never would’ve happened,” Rodney corrected him. They stepped out of the transporter and across the hall to the infirmary. 

“Och,” Carson said, pausing on his way out the door. “I was just gettin’ off shift. What is it— oh my dear Lord, Colonel Sheppard, is that all _your_ blood?”

“Yes,” Rodney said, “I can’t believe he hasn’t passed out.”

“Jesus,” Sheppard said, annoyed. 

“My word,” Carson said, and grabbed him by the elbow, steering him to a bed and pressing him down onto it. With one hand he snagged a cart and yanked it over, pulling on a pair of gloves before the thing had even stopped rolling. “Let’s see now. What caused this?”

“A rotary cutter,” Sheppard said.

Carson peeled back the blood-soaked fabric, winced, and said, “Och, that’s a nasty one. Quite deep too. Whatever caused this was razor-sharp.”

“That’s because it was a razor,” Sheppard said patiently. 

Carson squirted saline across the wound, sort of futilely since more blood welled almost immediately. He pressed a gauze pad into place, holding it down firmly with practiced fingers, and only then looked up into Sheppard’s face. “Back up,” he said, “a what, now?”

“A rotary cutter,” Sheppard said. “It’s a circular razor mounted on a handle. You use it for cutting fabric.”

“ _I_ don’t,” Carson said. “Where would you get such a thing?”

“Earth,” Sheppard said. “Jeannie sent it to me.”

“And why not just use scissors like a normal person?” Carson asked, blue eyes wide and mystified. 

“Lotsa reasons,” Sheppard said, sort of mumbling. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “More precise cuts, easier to cut a curve, you can do several layers at once and they’re identical.”

“Really,” Carson said, blank. 

“Quilters use ‘em,” Sheppard said, really mumbling now. 

The pieces, as it were, suddenly came together for Rodney, and he said “Oh my God, that’s what you were doing. You’re quilting.”

“Yes,” Sheppard snapped. “Jeez. Yes. I’m making a goddamn quilt. Or trying to.”

“Oh my God,” Rodney said. “It’s like I don’t even _know_ you.”

“A quilt,” Carson said. 

“It’s your sister’s fault,” Sheppard said. “Jeannie kinda dared me to. She sent me the cutter thing. So I thought, fine, how hard could it be?”

“Colonel,” Carson said with a laugh, “maybe you should stick to shooting people. It’s less dangerous.”

Sheppard scowled at him, but submitted with practiced patience to the stitches Carson put in. 

 

Rodney went and retrieved the beer before making his way down to Sheppard’s quarters. Sheppard answered his door with a tight-lipped, wryly annoyed expression, but said nothing and let Rodney in. His annoyance eased markedly when Rodney produced the beer. “I had Jeannie send me this,” Rodney said. “For you.”

That actually wrung a smile out of Sheppard. “Well,” he said. “Thanks.” 

They went and sat on the balcony, and clinked their bottles together. “Here’s to no longer being the only two people who don’t get care packages from home,” Rodney said. 

Sheppard grinned, looking down. “Yeah,” he said. He swigged from his bottle, then leaned his shoulder against Rodney’s. “I would rather have had new skateboard bearings, though.”

“Than the beer, you mean?” Rodney asked, though he knew what he meant.

Sheppard shot him a fondly disgusted look. “Than the cutter thing, dork.”

“We’ll have to work on her about that,” Rodney said happily.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm a schmoop so this is what ended up happening to the quilt.

 

“You have a package,” Carter said. 

Vala looked up. “Hm?” She looked around. “Are you speaking to me?”

“Yes,” Carter said, and her smile was a little rueful and warm. “Somebody sent you a package.”

Vala kept her expression mild and pleasant. “Is it explosive?”

Carter laughed. “No,” she said, “it’s been scanned for anything dangerous. It’s from Atlantis.” She tilted her head over at the lab bench, and sure enough, there was a box there, of that cardboard stuff, taped shut. It had “VALA MAL DORAN” scrawled on it in Earth writing, in thick black ink. Most likely from one of those markers that smelled so strongly. Vala kind of liked the smell. She went over and looked curiously at it. 

“What’s in it?” Vala asked. 

“Oh, we haven’t opened it,” Carter said. “We just checked to see if it was dangerous, if it was really from where it said it was. I assume nobody from Atlantis would send you something dangerous.”

“Why would they send me anything at all?” she asked, but in the back of her mind there was a little niggling memory. Oh yes. She’d helped Sheppard. Maybe he’d gotten her something. That would be nice. People didn’t usually give her gifts she didn’t trick out of them. 

“You must have made a friend while you were there,” Carter said. She raised her eyebrows. “Did you?”

“I don’t know,” Vala said, putting out a hand to touch the box carefully. It was an ordinary box, not humming, no feeling of danger, no thrumming sensation of naquadah or anything. It just felt like a box.

“Well,” Carter said. “Why don’t you open it?” She stepped closer and handed Vala a pair of scissors. “Just cut the tape, boxes of that design usually just come open at the top.”

Vala hesitantly slit the tape holding the flaps closed, finding it was as Carter said, the flaps folded open and the box opened easily. There was a bundle of fabric with a piece of paper sitting on top. She pulled the paper out. 

“Sorry I bled on it,” she read laboriously. “I never made anything like this before. Thanks for fixing my shoulder. You might have saved my life.” She spent a moment puzzling through the signature at the end, which as was often the case with Earthlings, was messier than the rest. She was used to people taking care to make their mark the most legible and decorative part of correspondence, because normally who was saying it was more important than what it was. “I think this says John,” she said finally. 

“John Sheppard?” Carter peered into the box. “You fixed his shoulder?”

“I had my healing device with me,” Vala said. “It was really bothering him. And I thought it was a shame that something so pretty should be damaged.”

“That was nice of you,” Carter said. “I know those things can take a lot out of you.”

“Enough food and sleep, and it’s no big deal at all,” Vala said. She set the note down and pulled out the fabric. It was an armful, and it smelled of incense and soap and sunshine, like nothing should that had been in a ship’s cargo hold. 

“Oh my,” Carter said as it unfurled, “that’s beautiful.”

Vala spread it across an empty section of the lab bench to look at it. It was a series of long, thick, wavy sections of fabric, pieced together in a pattern that she finally made out as being the spires of the city of Atlantis in gold/red, set against a blue backdrop that was probably sea and sky. “Wow,” she said. The fabric was soft and cool to the touch on the front, but the back was all one color, a deep blue, and was warm to the touch and fuzzy. The whole thing was stitched down, through the front and back layers, with lines of stitching. 

“A lot of this is hand-sewn,” Carter said, running her hand across it. “It’s beautiful work. Wow. I wonder where Sheppard bought this.”

“I don’t think he bought it,” Vala said. She looked at the note again. 

Carter picked the note up. “I never made anything like this before,” she read. “Oh! He made this?”

Vala nodded, not trusting her voice. She knew how long sewing took, she’d had to make her own clothes before. Nobody had ever made her anything this nice before. Not for Vala. For Qetesh, of course. But never for herself. She traced her finger around one of the spires.

“This is really beautiful work,” Carter said, fingering the binding at the edge. “Even the machine stitching is nice. I had no idea the Atlantis expedition had a sewing machine, let alone that their military commander knew how to use it.”

Her phone rang, and she leaned over and picked it up. “Hello?” 

Vala’s hearing was excellent, so she had no trouble making out O’Neill’s distinctive drawl. “Did you send me a cardboard box with the point of origin symbol on it?”

“No, sir,” Carter answered. 

“I just came in and this thing was sitting on my desk. Do you know what it is or should I call the bomb squad?”

“Is your name written on it in thick magic marker?” Carter asked. “Kind of spiky handwriting?”

“Yeah,” O’Neill said. “Did you send it or not?”

“I didn’t send it, but I have one like it in front of me,” Carter said. “You should open it, it’s from Atlantis.”

“You sure?” O’Neill asked. 

“I’m sure,” Carter said. 

“If I get blown up I’m blaming y— what the hell is this?” 

“I don’t know, sir, I can’t see it,” Carter said, eyes twinkling with fond mischief. She was really, really fond of O’Neill, that much was easy to see. Vala was reasonably confident they’d never slept together, but she also was reasonably confident Carter wanted to. 

“It’s a stuffed penguin, I think,” O’Neill said. 

“Is there a note?” Carter asked. 

“Um,” O’Neill said. “Yes. ‘I kinda like it here,’” he read. “From… It’s from Sheppard.”

“I thought it might be,” Carter said. 

“Where did he find a penguin in the Pegasus Galaxy?” 

Carter laughed. “I would wager you he made it, sir.” 

“Made it?” O’Neill’s skepticism came loud and clear through the tinny phone line. 

“I have a beautiful quilt in front of me that he made for Vala,” Carter said. “I mean, really stunning. Who knew? The man’s a talented seamstr… seamster?”

“You mean he can sew,” O’Neill said. “Huh. Yeah, now that I look, somebody definitely sewed this thing. It’s got kinda… buttons for eyes.” 

“He made you a penguin,” Carter said. 

“Why did he send Vala a quilt?” O’Neill asked. 

“She used her Gou’auld hand device on an old injury of his,” Carter said. “Fixed him up.”

“She can do that?” he asked. 

“Sir, _I_ can do that,” she said. 

“How did I not know that?” he asked.

“You didn’t ask,” Carter answered. She exchanged a glance with Vala. 

“Men,” Vala said. She shook her head. “What’s a penguin and why would Sheppard send one to O’Neill?”

“A penguin is a flightless bird that lives in the Antarctic,” Carter said. “I know O’Neill and Sheppard met in the Antarctic.”

“Yeah,” O’Neill said, “we did, and he told me he kinda liked it there, which surprised me because nobody likes Antarctica. Ohhh. I get it.”

“What’s to get?” Carter asked. 

“Well,” O’Neill said. “I kinda… it wasn’t just Weir pushing so hard that got Sheppard promoted to Lt. Colonel and installed as permanent military commander on Atlantis. I kinda did some leaning on people, including going and rescuing him from where his anti-fan club had hastily posted him. And I guess he knew how much of that was me. I get it.” He paused a moment. “That’s so damn sweet my teeth hurt. Who knew the man was sentimental?”

“I’m not surprised,” Carter said. She was still fingering the edge of the quilt. 

“Huh,” O’Neill said. “Well, mystery solved. I should get back to work, I’ll call you later.”

“I look forward to it, sir,” Carter said, and hung up, grinning. 

Vala eyed her. “Next time you visit him,” she said, “I’ll loan you my healing device.”

“I bet O’Neill’s knee would thank you for it,” Carter said. 

Vala grinned at her, and wrapped her new quilt around her shoulders. “Nobody’s ever made me anything like this,” she admitted. 

“It’s beautiful,” Carter said. “That’s a nice gesture. Then again, it was awfully nice of you to heal him.”

“I suppose it was,” Vala said, wrapped up in the smell of incense and soap and sunshine. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Rotary cutters really are the bomb if you like sewing. And they're so not dangerous. Unless you're a total idiot. Like me. And Sheppard. :/


End file.
